XI 



GOATSUCKERS, SWIFTS, AND HUMMINGBIRDS 



WHIP-POOR-WILL 



June 11, 1851. The whip-poor-will suggests how 

 wide asunder are the woods and the town. Its note is 

 very rarely heard by those who live on the street, and 

 then it is thought to be of ill omen. Only the dwellers 

 on the outskirts of the village hear it occasionally. It 

 sometimes comes into their yards. But go into the 

 woods in a warm night at this season, and it is the pre- 

 vailing sound. I hear now five or six at once. It is no 

 more of ill omen therefore here than the night and the 

 moonlight are. It is a bird not only of the woods, but 

 of the night side of the woods. 



New beings have usurped the air we breathe, round- 

 ing Nature, filling her crevices with sound. To sleep 

 where you may hear the whip-poor-will in your dreams ! 



I hear some whip-poor-wills on hills, others in thick 

 wooded vales, which ring hollow and cavernous, like an 

 apartment or cellar, with their note. As when I hear 

 the working of some artisan from within an apart- 

 ment. 



June 13, 1851. It is not nightfall till the whip-poor- 

 wills begin to sing. 



June 14, 1851. From Conant's summit I hear as 

 many as fifteen whip-poor-wills — or whip-or-I-wills — 



